


French sucks

by mercury_wings



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Dad Spy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:21:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22023253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercury_wings/pseuds/mercury_wings
Summary: Scout knows who his father is.His father knows that he knows who he is.And he knows that his father knows-But nothing happened.
Relationships: Scout & Spy (Team Fortress 2)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 52





	French sucks

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a multi-chaptered fic (around 3 to four planned) but insp left me after 4k words. Sti sharing them here, and might come back to edit n add new chapters if I ever feel like it !

We all know those days, the kinda days when you don't feel like doing anything, the kinda days when everything is going too fast and too loud and you're pretty sad life doesn't have a mute button.

  
Scout was having one of those days. He had been having a lot of those lately, which was strange, because he figured his life had recently got a lot better considering the update from living in prison and wanting to kill Spy 24/7 to living in the fort and wanting to kill everyone 24/7. He just had those sudden dramatic moments, zoning out while running or eating or playing video games, and everyone in teufort found those moments as weird as he did.

Because when he zoned out, he stopped talking. And Scout never ever stopped talking, except when something was wrong.

  
Right now, the something that was wrong were Medic and Spy arguing about one of the former's new “medical advancements” (in other words: a brand new way of dissecting operating on people), and both had their way of including words from their native languages in their rants that were already painful to hear because of their heavy accents. Not that Scout had a thing against accents; people arguing in general just put him in a bad mood.

  
Thankfully, nobody had realized he was sulking on top of the table, arms crossed and chewing on his baseball cap (since he didn’t feel like running around or running his mouth) because everyone was closely listening to the argument to try and understand what actually was going on. Scout had given up on the notion that was “understanding something” long ago, and since his brain really wasn't interested in grasping reality, he zones out.

  
Until he hears a very loud “MAIS ES-TU CON OU QUOI ? PETIT ENCULÉ DE MERDE” and his brain wakes up, analysing the words quicker than he thought it would, and he has to press his palm on his mouth once the automatic translation makes sense in order to not burst out laughing when he shouldn't.

  
But he was Scout. And Scout, 27 year old, could not not find hilarious learning that classy Spy of all people had the dirtiest mouth of them all. As he was the most mature of the group, the young man starts laughing loudly soon enough.

  
And everybody goes silent.

  
Shit.

  
“Was ist so funny ?” Medic asks him immediately, the argument forgotten and all his anger directed at poor little Scout who hadn't done anything.

  
“Nothin'.” He answers as neutrally as possible, but then meets Spy's eyes and there he goes again. The silence becomes awkward. So he starts speaking again as he can, “’s just that, ya know, Spy cusses like, like a highschooler who got his lunchbox stolen, right ?”

  
More silence. Scout feels a bit stupid all of a sudden. “He doesn't ?” he asks gingerly, putting his cap on his head and readying himself to run away if he was completely wrong.

  
“We wouldn't know, nobody ‘ere understand french, mate.” Sniper points out, and it makes sense, because why would anyone learn or speak french other than french people, right ? Except Scout did understand one or two words (especially insults), which must be a surprise for everyone, since he was the dumbest of the lot.

  
“Where did you learn french ?”

  
Scout is half surprised why Spy was asking him the question, half happy because that meant he was invited to talk about himself. “In school ! Ma really liked french stuff so I decided to learn french for her, ‘xcept it didn't go too well, ‘cause I'm dumb an' in school kids wanna learn how to say shit instead of hello”

  
“Sehr interessant.” Medic rolls his eyes, gesturing to leave and one by one everyone loses attention, going back to what they were doing before the big argument, ignoring leaving Scout alone, and he does feel stupid now. What a shame, nobody wanted to hear about his marvellous past; not that he spoke about it often, since there were things that didn't need to be remembered.

  
It kinda hurt his feelings.

  
He pushes himself off the table, feeling his shoes hit the ground and the little shock jolt his knees. He stretches out, knowing he just had to play as if he didn't speak up in the first place, although he was glad he had brought an end to the weird argument so easily. He made them lose interest in it with a simple silly remark, which made no sense to most people, and he felt proud of that. The mercs owed him one.  
Scout wonders what he should do between taking a nap and going for a run, opting for the latter when he feels his legs itching for movement, and decides to grab himself a drink and his baseball bat for some fun time alone; when suddenly someone calls out his name. He's surprised, people only called him on the battlefield for some help or when he had done something bad like drinking too much soda or breaking something. 

  
He turns around. “Wassup ?” 

  
“You said your mother really liked french and that you wished to learn french to please her, correct ?”

  
“Well,” he doesn't think too deeply about Spy's words, he never thought deeply about much, “yeah, kinda. It’s a shame I’m not smart enough to learn anything properly, though. She was a bit disappointed.” He feels a bit too small now, a bit too young, a bit too dumb. The frenchman seems very deep in thoughts; he thought a lot about everything anyone said, so Scout simply clears his throat and waves goodbye meekly.

  
He wants to go run or occupy himself as quickly as possible to not give his brain an opportunity to think about things, but Spy raises his hand to stop him. He clears his throat too, straightens his posture and crosses his arms.

  
“Since we do not have much to do these days—”

  
“Damn right we don't !”

  
“—if you wish I can try to teach you a little bit of french.” Pause. “For your mother.”

  
The proposition hangs in the air awkwardly, and Scout notices too late that his brain had decided to start to actually think, and suddenly there's a lot of memories coming back to him at once.  
From his ma crying and his bros saying he was the reason why she was sad, to that day he didn't like to talk about because he had actually died in the arms of his dad (but who was his dad ?) and saw God, which made no sense, which was why he never thought about it, but right now he was thinking about it, and his head hurt bad—

  
Spy was being weird and so was his mind.

  
“Why ?”

  
“Why what.”

  
“Why are you proposing to help me ? I mean, ya hate me, an' ya hate everyone to be fair, an' like why would you help me ? It's weird, man, it's weird, it’s weird”

  
Spy frowns, gesturing with his hands in a mildly annoyed, mildy secretive way. “I don’t ‘ave anything else to do.” He says as if it was a valid excuse.

  
“Ya're always doin’ something ! Like, uh, sneakin’ around ? Or uh, being sly ?” Scout makes close to no sense, as usual, and the older man just sighs and wait—was he disappointed ? Before waving dismissively.

  
“If you don't want to, I understand.”

  
He understood ? Was Spy getting old ? Spy was never even remotely kind, right ? And he was proposing his help freely right now ? Maybe Scout needed more caffeine, scratch that he definitely needed Medic to clean him inside out to get rid of all the caffeine, because he was having hallucinations. As Spy walks away, the young man makes panicked gestures with his hands, jumping on a foot then the other and grabs his face, groaning loudly.

  
In the back of his mind, Heavy's voice says yes, your dad disappears often and his weird dream comes back, and that day when he died and swore he heard someone uncloaking right before slipping into heaven screams that this all makes sense !

  
But he doesn't want it to make sense.

  
Right ?

  
“He-heyhey wait—” Spy turns around with an unreadable expression and the young man regrets his choice already, “It'd be cool.”

  
“What would ?”Was he trying to make Scout's brain short circuit and cause his death ? Yeah, probably. 

  
“French. Like, teachin' me french. Ya know. It'd be cool.”

  
God please answer before this becomes even weirder “Alright then. Come on. Let's start.”

-

  
“Are you even listening ?”

  
“Yeah, yeah sure am”

  
He doesn't even bother raising his head as he hears the frenchman sigh loudly. His brain kept on forgetting everything, which sucked bad, and his gut felt all weird when Spy used “that” tone to make him repeat something or explain a word. “I'm sorry.” He mumbles.

  
“Pardon ?”

  
“I said I'm sorry. For being dumb. I guess.” It wasn't his habit to be all sorry and sad about everything but his lack of intelligence was a thing he really couldn't argue about, since well, he lacked the intelligence to do so.

  
Spy sighs, for the fifty-eighth time today (why did he keep count ?) and pushes him up. “Alright. I have another idea.” He simply says, taking his gun out. “Droite.”

  
Wait.

  
Before he has the time to register what's going on, the masked man shoots. Now very awake and panicked, Scout takes a giant leap to his left to dodge the bullet, tripping and falling on his face with a high-pitched scream.

  
“WHAT THE FUCK ?!” he yells, very loudly, heart beating even louder in his ears.

  
“Droite.”

  
“Wha-?”

  
And Spy shoots his right again. So Scout dodges again, by pushing himself up to the left. He is breathing heavily; was the system operational yet ? If he got shot and died, would he come back ? Was Spy being careful ? Would he actually allow a bullet to touch his—

  
“Gauche.” He warns, cocking his gun once more. He had said another word, that was probably french judging by the accent, before shooting his left side this time. Now up, the young man sidesteps right, feet clumsily falling on the dirt at every jump.

  
He was still scared, but this time, his fighting logic is running, and very quickly assimilating “droite” to a bullet to the right and “gauche” to a bullet to the left. Scout is surprised when his feet automatically do the math themselves after some time, catching the rhythm a bit better. Spy looks proud, kind of, starting to shoot a bit faster.

  
The young man likes that kind of challenge. He steps, jumps between bullets, even manages to dance a bit before a bullet gets way too close and he starts to pay attention again. It's fun, it really is; except part of him is still very scared that if he gets shot he will die for real. Forever.

  
Except he had already died once, hasn't he ?

  
“Droite !”

  
He had already died and his real father had refused to tell his son the truth even as he was giving up his last breath and smiling his last smile—

  
He doesn't hear the safety coming off and his body doesn't react as it usually did when hearing a gunshot. He just knows soon enough that his arm is burning ? He falls on his left side, clutching his right arm (that made sense, he had been warned), that moment of flashing anger and pain already gone.  
Except pain isn't really gone.

  
“Ah, shit.” He whispers through gritted teeth, not daring to move any muscle in the fear that it would trigger a third panicked reminiscing moment. “I fucked up.”

  
Scout doesn't have the strength to shout, or be angry, blinking slowly and pushing the pain to the back of his mind when he gets yanked up by his left arm (not the shot one) and he lets out a little whine.

  
“What were you thinking ?” the accent is suddenly thicker than usual, voice not much different from the sneer Spy made when he was absolutely furious.

  
“Somethin'.” Is the only thing he can answer as his arm is examined quickly, wound rubbed and inspected. He doesn't think it's too bad, just a flesh wound, the bullet shouldn't even be in judging by the amount of pain that wasn't actually very big. That's probably what Spy realizes, because he pushes him back down in a sitting position, and Scout notices he hadn't been seeing anything for the past seconds and is kind of surprised when he notices the man that had been here all this time in front of him.

  
“You smell of cigarette. Ew.” He points out after a few seconds, his gut still in a horribly pained state and his brain getting angrier and angrier by the second for absolutely no reason.

  
“What were you thinking about ?” he asks again, ignoring the remark. “You suddenly stopped reacting on instinct and got shot. You were distracted. What distracted you ?”

  
“For my defense it's your fault cause you were the one shootin' me—"

  
“Scout !”

  
“Okay okay” he sighs, raising his hand in surrender. Maybe he should answer truthfully, maybe he should make up a lie; but he was speaking to Spy and spies always knew when you were lying.

  
Maybe it would have been better if he had been shot dead, he wouldn't have had to explain anything. Now his only escape was—

  
“I don' wanna talk about it.”

  
“What ?” the single word is said with so much anger and venom, so much fear and panic, so much emotion actually, that Scout feels guilty.  
But he couldn't just talk about his dad to who was probably his real dad and had chosen to let him die in ignorance instead of telling him the truth and

  
“I’m just thinkin' about some stuff ok ?”

  
“You ? Thinking ?”

  
“First of all, ouch, and second of all, yeah I’m kinda—” uh oh stop there Scout “—kinda angry at someone an' like I don't wanna talk about it.”

  
“You should confront the concerned person about it.”  
Oh the irony. Oh, the irony.

  
Oh. The irony.

  
“Yeah nah.” He gestures to get up but is pulled back down. “I gotta get to Medic !”

  
“Not before you tell me what's been upsetting you for so long. You’re not as performant as usual on the battlefield and it’s a handicap for all of us.” Spy severely says. He feels like a scolded child, which only makes him madder, but he doesn't want to have that argument now, so he pushes the man away with what he hopes is an unreadable expression.

  
“Fuck off. I'm always doin' good on the field.”

  
“No you aren't. Sit back down.”

  
Part of him wants to scream and yell and cry, because his throat hurts so much, and punch and kick and shoot anybody in his way and the other part just feels pain. He is tired. So, so tired.

  
“Look, man. My fuckin' arm feels like shit cause you fuckin' shot me, I've died an’ come back to life like two weeks ago, an’ my fuckin'—” he stops, rubbing his face and god he feels so old all of a sudden, “my fuckin' dad would rather have me die without me knowin' who he is than man up and tell me the truth about everythin'. So please, can I go get Medic patch me up ?”

  
He hates how far this had come, hates that just because he had found some french insult funny he had been shot and he was kind of having the talk he didn't want to have. Spy looks taken aback, but even two seconds of showing his feelings by half-pronouncing Scout's real name is too much and he shuts up. They both know he wants to reach out, but they also both know he can't.

  
“That's real fucked up.” Scout—Jeremy finally says, after a long silence. They both knew, and they both didn't know how to deal with it, so they were going to leave the matter unattended just like that.

  
“Oui—yes. Yes it is.”

  
“I-I’m gonna go see Medic.”

  
“You do that.”

  
“I'll see you around.”

  
No answer comes, instead the sound of cloaking and Spy disappears into thin air.

  
Your father disappears often.

  
Jeremy wants to cry and call his dad, but Scout turns around and silently makes his way to the medbay.

.

  
He feels empty.

  
After some loud german complaining and a little bandage on his arm, Scout had been abandoned on the couch, all by his own.

  
He hated being alone and not being able of doing anything. He feels like shit (had Medic drugged him ?), which prevents him from getting up, and everything makes no sense.

  
Look at him being dramatic. He groans, puts an arm on his face, and yells in it. Nobody answers, obviously, so he sighs and flops back down, clutching his right arm against him.

  
He didn't want to talk about it.

  
“Hey, kiddo, wanna talk about it ?”

  
He makes a disgruntled noise before turning his head to meet Sniper's tired eyes. “Didja forget your coffee an' ya came back for it ?”

  
Silence. “Yah.”

  
“Take your coffee an' fuck off, then.”

  
He feels the australian's stare harden on his back as he shifts on the couch. The man whistles in surprise, but Scout doesn't look at him nor does he says anything more. He regrets his choice of letting his feelings take ahold of his appearance, but he really didn't have the strength to talk nor jump around.  
He clenches and unclenches his palms around the baseball he had kept with him as a distraction as the couch shifts with a new weight, Sniper sitting down with a little groan. He pokes the younger man with a can of energizing drink, that doesn't feel so cold against his freezing shoulder. Scout sighs, takes the can, casually lets out a “I can't say nah to a good drink” in an attempt to sound and look ok.

  
“Yah.”

  
Sniper doesn't say anything more, gulping down a monstrous amount of coffee in a second. The Scout considers saying more, opening the can with a loud crack, but doesn't find anything to say and drinks instead.

  
He really needed that little push right now. It's one of his favourite sodas, one of the most dangerous for his health and therefore one of Medic’s least favourites. He drinks silently, and Sniper does too, and soon enough they have both finished their respective beverage in an amount of time that was definitely unnatural.

  
Scout feels a bit better. Just a little bit. His mouth tastes less heavy and more sugary, body less tired and a bit more pumped up. He's still upset, but there wasn't much he could do about that, so he just had to get up and be boisterous and annoying as always. Sounded like a good plan, that felt very much do-able all of a sudden.

  
“Thanks dude, tha's a good drink right there. I'm all fired up !” Sniper shoots him a curious, albeit slightly worried look. He puts his mug on the table and watches as the young man crushes his can and slams it on the table too, grinning with newfound determination. It feels weird, seeing him change moods so quickly in a few minutes; but he isn't complaining.

  
“I think I liked ya better when ya didn' talk.”

  
“Rude !”

-

  
He ignores Spy for the rest of the week.

  
It was now less sad and more weird that he didn't know what to tell him, because when he was small he used to always think about what he would tell his dad once he met him.

  
When he was real small, like a little kid under ten, he thought about happy things to tell him. It was his dad after all, and dads loved their sons, and he definitely had a reason for not being here. Tiny Jeremy wanted to see his dad and hug him, and then do all the things his friends did with their dads with him. He wanted to have a normal life with a normal family; or as close to normal as it could be with seven brothers and all sorts of step-dads and one only mom.

  
After his tenth birthday, that had been a very important day for him, Jeremy started to hate is father. Why wasn't he here ? Why had he left ? Why did he make mom so sad ? And while taking french lessons he learned all sorts of bad words to qualify his dad of. Bâtard, salot, enculé and many many more came to his mind when he thought of that mystery man. It wasn't a good thing to think that he had planned on kicking his dad's ass if he ever saw him, but in a sense he gradually grew to accept the fact because it was true.

  
Then, somewhere in his twenties, Jeremy forgot what he wanted to tell his dad. All the questions, all the anger, all the sorrow had vanished into thin air when much more important matters were at hand. He had to gain money, had to take care of his ma, had to literally fight to live and eventually his dad was forgotten. Whenever he thought about it, he told himself that was okay, because his dad had also probably forgotten about him.

  
And that was okay for Jeremy, because now he was Scout and Scout was nothing more than another fighter in teufort, and that was fine. He convinced himself that it was just. Fine.

  
Until it wasn't anymore.

  
The man he didn’t even know had now entered his life when he should've had many years ago. He finds out via Medic slipping up, gets the confirmation from Heavy, and then even from God who had looked quite uncertain when the bostonian had mentioned Tom Jones.

  
The stupid illusion he had when drunk disappeared just like that, when he got enough blood back in his body and stared at the ceiling of the medbay for three hours, twenty-seven minutes and nine seconds exactly (according to Sniper who was also lying there half naked keeping count because he couldn't move). He finally met his dad, finally knew who he was, and yet.

  
He had nothing to tell him. Absolutely nothing. He figures he could call his mom and let her do the talk, but then what ? Would he come back ? Would anything change at all ?

  
The unfortunate thing, Scout notes, is that his father had showed up when he had stopped being important. He was twenty-seven for god's sake, and if he didn't have a father for all those twenty-seven years, then having one now wasn't going to change anything.

  
And that sucked real bad.

  
Scout blinks, barely hearing someone call his name before a gun taps his cheek. He doesn't react but he should, since it's a gun, but the big hand belongs to Engineer and he's asking him to get up.

  
“We have a rescue mission goin' on, and you're just sittin’ here ?” he says with a smile, gently nudging the gun in his hand. The younger man bitterly considers the fatherly gesture before allowing his fingers to tighten on the gun and gets up.

  
“Rescue mission ?” Scout questions once on his feet, pushing the gun in his pocket.

  
“You really haven't been in it lately, have you ?”  
He doesn't find the need nor the energy to answer.  
“...Alright. Anyways, someone sabotaged the respawn machine, so I gotta fix it like I always do, an' the same someone took Spah so—”

  
“Took ?” the situation wasn't great, why hadn't Scout realized ? “You mean he got kidnapped or somethin’ ?” he pauses. “Kidnapped Spy ?”

  
Engineer looks as uncomfortable about the situation as Scout thought he would be. “Well, yeah.”

  
“That fucking sucks !”

  
“It does. Now, I need you to get into it because since we don't have a spy anymore, you're the only one who's... a minimum fit for an infiltration job.” 

  
He swallows thickly. “Of course I am. I'm awesome, I can do any kinda job.”

  
Engie doesn't look convinced, but opts on tapping the young man’s capped head instead of commenting. “Just stay silent.”

  
The runner jumps up to his feet, making a quiet “ok” gesture with his fingers. They had been standing around behind some tall building Scout couldn't recognize, but correctly assigns as the place he had to go in.

  
Heavy is the one who opens the backdoor of the place, and points in it before turning his wrist and mimicking a punch up. Suddenly everyone had gone quiet, the only way of communication were gestures they had learned (thanks to Spy).

  
Go up the stairs, first level. The big man makes a second punch up. Second level then. And shows three fingers up before shoving the bostonian right in and slams the door behind him.

  
Smart. Would make the people inside believe it was just a gush of wind; nobody would act as stupid as slamming a door while infiltrating a place.

  
He takes a few steps, bat swinging from his arm loosely, ready to hit, and stops at the corner. According to the code, it was—

  
“Third door on your left, second floor.” He nearly screams at the sudden voice, barely catching himself to cover his mouth. It came from his headpiece.  
“It's Sniper. I'll monitor ya. Don't answer. Jus' tap once for yes and twice for nah. Capiche ?”

  
He taps once.

  
Then moves up.

  
It has been a while since he'd run only on his toes, but the springing sensation hadn't been missed. He pushes himself higher at every jump, allowing his shoes to fully touch the ground solely when walking more slowly around corners and doors that could open.

  
As usual, he's fast. His chest contains a mix of fear of being found out, and pride in knowing he could full well defend himself in case he was attacked.  
Except his father had been defeated by those guys.  
Thinking during this kind of missions was never good. He had to empty his mind.

  
Empty.

  
He stares at the very empty corridor in front of him, and takes a deep breath. His mind is here, right here, right in this place, englobing every single detail in his peripheral vision, only thinking about the mission.

  
“Awright boy, if you look closely you'll see that the third door on yer left is locked.” Sniper pauses, waiting to hear the confirming tap. Scout walks over to said door, not bothering to tip toe now, gently putting his hand on the handle.

  
He pushes. Slowly, so the click of the door isn’t too loud, and surprisingly, it slides open without resistance. He barely opens it; wondering if the full push could cause a creak. “Tha's weird.” The bushman simply remarks, voice in a quiet hush, as if he was there watching the silver handle in Scout's hand. “It should have been locked.”

  
Now he allows a little panic to slip in, tapping repetitively on his mic, and the reverberation of each static hit makes his heartbeat drum a little faster. “Don't worry, if things go south, Engie is fixin' the respawn system an' I’ll tell ya when you can kill...” he takes a small breath. “When ya can come back. Ya ?”

  
Scout's finger hovers over the mouthpiece. He wants to propose to wait here safely until the system is online, so he'll be sure to make it back; but at the same there is someone behind this door that could be dying, and by each second passing by his heartbeat could be slowing down, down, down—

  
Fuck it.

  
He taps on the mic. Once.

  
And pushes the door open.

  
He nearly curses aloud when it creaks, but reminds himself to stay silent, and hopes that the sound had just felt louder to him because of the panic, when it was in reality just the faintest whine of a door. He closes it quickly, not too quickly though, and leaves his hand on the handle until it is all the way up and incapable of clacking anymore.

  
“Be careful.” As if he already wasn't, he wants to answer, but right now the air is thick, and heavy, and breathing silently starts becoming harder and harder by the second. He opens his mouth, sucks air in with the bottom of his throat, then closes it after enough oxygen is in his body and he moves forward.

to be c o n t i n u e d ?

**Author's Note:**

> I hoped you liked this yet wip I sulpppose ! I have a lotta dad spy feels ! Bye !!!


End file.
